Kevin is the editor of The Skateboard Mag., a publication we dig. We contacted him and asked for a short interview about his home Nebraska, how he got his start in the editorial world and the name of his future dog. Fecal Face, meet Kevin Wilkins.
interview by Isaac McKay-Randozzi

Kevin is the editor of The Skateboard Mag., a publication we dig. We contacted him and asked for a short interview about his home Nebraska, how he got his start in the editorial world and the name of his future dog. Fecal Face, meet Kevin Wilkins.

Nebraska? Why there? Why not stay in California?
There was a time, not too long ago, that I said out loud and with some frequency, I will never move back to Lincoln again. Ever. And you know how the universe works, right? It conspires against you and your grand statements. Thats one reason Im here, Id guess... Our families are here, we have some good old friends, we know where to go and eat, where to go get coffee, where to by inner tubes, and grip tape, and crackers. Were familiar with the place, and its cyclesfor right noware comforting not tedious.

This last time I left California, I was sick of the guy I was working for and sick of driving an hour a day, and sick of being away from my wife. Now Im sick of being away from Californias weather and its skateparks. I like skateparks. I also miss my friends, but we get to visit with each other pretty often, so its okay... Dont cry for me.

How did you get into the skateboarding editorial business?
The only correct way.

Oh, should I elaborate?
I skateboarded first. That seems to be the proper first step... Then I got hurt. To fill the time healing from injury, I started shooting photos, drawing, writing, and then cutting and pasting stuff in to zines. I traded those zines with a few people through the mail and eventually those people became lifelong friends.

Andy Jenkins was one of the guys I used to correspond with and he eventually offered me some work on the big-format magazine Home Boy, where my friend and fellow zine-ster / Lincolnite Bernie McGinn had just started working as a photographer and darkroom tech.

I moved out to Torrance at the end of December 89 and three months later Wizard Publications folded the magazine.

TransWorld was looking for an associate editor at the time, and another zine maker friend, Tod Swank, lined up an interview for me. A few days later, Jenkins was driving me down there in his Hyundai, with my futon, a crate of vinyl, and my toiletries in the back. Ive been doing magazine work, in one form or another ever since.

How do you go about editing Dave Carnie's writing?
I do a word search for poop and cut half of the occurrences out.

No, really, I dont do much of anything do Daves writing. Hes a pro in every sense of the word, no matter how he portrays himself. Hes on time, he does his homework, and hes got what appears to be an effortless talent for typing. He likes what he does. Thats the main reason I think hes so good.

The Skateboard Mag only allows skate companies to advertise in it. Has this posed any financial problems? Skaters aren't the best about paying their bills on time.
We havent really run into any so-called problems that you wouldnt see in any industry, though. The biggest thing weve learned is that you cant just draw a line in the sand and say, This is it. Everyone has different needs and different wants and different ways of running their shit. It takes a nation of millions

That we only allow skateboard companies to advertise is a beautiful myth, though. I love it. Theres really no set definition for what a skateboard company is these days other than varying degrees of the obvious, they have to keep it real. That said, from the oldest crusty trog to the youngest shop-lurker kid, real skaters know reaI skate companies when they see them.

I know its kind of boring, but in reality we have a limited amount of space in the book and we try to maintain a ratio of edit to advertising that we think is ideal. Part of this comes from knowing what weve always liked to see in magazines, and part of it is protecting the companies who advertise with us from getting lost in a huge mess of page turning and wasted space and demographic farming.

Does living in Nebraska pose any problems when putting The Mag together?
Oh, yeah. A few. Luckily the people I work with are a patient and forward-thinking group.

The nature of making magazines is kind of autonomous, anyway. You know? I mean, usually there are a few people working behind desks, and a ton other people out on the streets skating, shooting photos, writing, and helping to come up with ideas. The fact that my desk is in a basement in the sorrowful Midwest isnt really that big of a problemmore like a way to keep us engaged and thinking deliberately about what were doing. You can never coast, and you shouldnt be even thinking about coasting anyway, regardless of geography, regardless of where you pay rent.

One thing about being here, thougha justification that I enjoy relating to whoever will listenis that the things I see in my town and the towns around here are far more representative of what the majority of the worlds skaters experience. I love California. Really. But have you noticed where names like Heck, Kalis, Pratt, McCallum, Buzenitz, Navarrette, Torres, Ramondetta, Berra, Nesser, Allie, Malto, and Peterson, among others, have come from? You have to want to skateboard out here, and in doing so youre automatically a little out of step. I dont think theres anything wrong with that.

Have any pets?
An old border collie / lab named Carl.

If you get another dog, will you name it Lenny?
Oh, like from The Simpsons? Maybe.

Cheryl named her. Yes, a girl dog named Carl. You know how we do.

There are these childrens booksCarl the Dog books and in all of them, this mother leaves her child alone with a dog named Carl. The dog and the baby have a great time. Theyre drawn in a very awkward style and the whole idea behind them is completely psycho. Cheryl thought our Carl looked like the one in the books. I didnt see them til later, but I liked the name

How'd you first find out about Fecal Face Dot Com?
I cant remember. I can guess, though. Probably through looking at Crownfarmer, the Slap site, or Crailtap right when it started. I think thatd be an interesting path to follow. Maybe it could be an episode of CSI, or something.

Has e-mail made your job easier or harder?
Much easier. Everything we do now is somehow connected to e-mail or the internet. Its made the world smaller, which most of the time I dont think is a bad deal. It also has the potential to allow you to do so many things from so many places. I like potential. Its like the ocean when Im out west I may never go out in it, but its nice knowing I could if I wanted to.

Ever go cow tipping?
Sure. We live for making the rural myth into non-fiction.

Done any traveling lately, or plan to?
Im going to Minneapolis in a couple weeks for 3rd Lairs Top Shop contest. That should be pretty fun. Probably be out in Cali a few times this summer for this and that. Were taking a little family trip to Colorado in June to skate some parks and camp out. Im sure there will be some skate centered trip for The Mag thatll sneak its way into my life soon, too. I love the Northwest, I havent been to SF forever, I miss NYC. Nothing planned but thats good, I believe. No plan.

Ever heard of Porous Walker?
Yes, I have. Is he planning on traveling soon, too?
{moscomment}

We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...

If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.

Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.

Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.

Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.

Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.

San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.

Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.

Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.

The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.

With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding

I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle

Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.

Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.

I don't think at this point it needs to be written since the last update to Fecal Face was a long time ago, but...

I, John Trippe, have put this baby Fecal Face to bed. I'm now focusing my efforts on running ECommerce at DLX which I'm very excited about... I guess you can't take skateboarding out of a skateboarder.

It was a great 15 years, and most of that effort can still be found within the site. Click around. There's a lot of content to explore.

I'm not sure how many people are lucky enough to have The San Francisco Giants 3 World Series trophies put on display at their work for the company's employees to enjoy during their lunch break, but that's what happened the other day at Deluxe. So great.

When works of art become commodities and nothing else, when every endeavor becomes “creative” and everybody “a creative,” then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal pickles, artisanal poems: what’s the difference, after all? So “art” itself may disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless, like me, you think we need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to mourn.

Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional—the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it? --continue reading

"[Satire] is important because it brings out the flaws we all have and throws them up on the screen of another person," said Turner. “How they react sort of shows how important that really is.” Later, he added, "Charlie took a hit for everybody." -read on

NYC --- A new graffiti abatement program put forth by the police commissioner has beat cops carrying cans of spray paint to fill in and cover graffiti artists work in an effort to clean up the city --> Many cops are thinking it's a waste of resources, but we're waiting to see someone make a project of it. Maybe instructions for the cops on where to fill-in?

The NYPD is arming its cops with cans of spray paint and giving them art-class-style lessons to tackle the scourge of urban graffiti, The Post has learned.

Shootings are on the rise across the city, but the directive from Police Headquarters is to hunt down street art and cover it with black, red and white spray paint, sources said... READ ON

We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...

If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.

Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.

Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.

Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.

Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.

San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.

Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.

Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.

The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.

With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding

I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle

Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.

Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.

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